On Good Authority
by silvaaeterna
Summary: Normally, there are no winners or losers in Spin the Bottle – but it wouldn't be Wammy's House without a little competition. (Mello x Near. Matt x Anything That Moves. Oneshot.)


**Summary:** Normally, there are no winners or losers in Spin the Bottle – but it wouldn't be Wammy's House without a little competition. (Mello x Near. Matt x Anything That Moves. Oneshot.)

 **A/N:** Cliché-as-all-hell premise, I know, but still a fun one. I decided I needed a break from angsty stuff, so I thought I'd try a short humor/fluff piece instead. Of course the fluff-train sort of veered off the rails toward sexy-town... but I don't think anybody will complain about that. :P

Rated T mostly because Matt and Mello are pottymouths. Mostly.

* * *

 **On Good Authority**

Matt kissed Mello for the third time that evening, and backed away with a smug grin on his face.

"You rigged the damn bottle somehow, didn't you?" Mello huffed, fighting down a blush.

"Of course not!" Matt said, feigning offense. "You're just lucky, is all."

" _I'm_ lucky?" Mello scoffed. The next kid, Dusty, was already spinning.

"Well yeah, I have it on good authority that I'm a _great_ kisser," Matt said, still leaning and grinning lazily in Mello's direction. Dusty, already making a comical kissy-face, was crawling across the circle in front of them toward a blushing Rose.

"I don't think your 'good authority' is much of an authority at all." The bottle was spinning again. Rose was still blushing madly, her friends and Dusty's still giggling.

"Hmph, yeah, like you know better," Matt pouted, sitting up and away from Mello. Mello snickered at him, but it was drowned away as the rest of the circle laughed. Pulp had just joined them three or four spins ago, and now, on his first spin, he had landed on himself and lost his turn. The fat little boy looked incredibly downtrodden by it, until Casablanca – the pretty girl sitting to his right – took her spin and landed on him. The whole circle erupted in oohs and aahs as Pulp received what they all knew to be his first kiss ever.

As the empty Coca-Cola bottle continued to twirl and clink on the hard floor, and pairs of giggling barely-teens continued to kiss, the playroom door quietly opened. Mello didn't care all that much about the game so long as the bottle wasn't picking him, so he was the only one who seemed to notice it.

Matt was stretched across Mello, kissing the girl that sat next to him, when a familiar mop of white hair peeked through the door. Mello snarled.

Breaking away from the girl, Matt smirked at him. "Jealous?"

Mello punched him in the arm and pointed toward the little albino boy, now shuffling his socked feet toward their circle. Matt looked, and promptly rolled his eyes. He plopped back down in his designated spot, muttering, "Here we go again..."

Linda looked too, her face lighting up as the boy approached her side of the circle. "Near! Come join us, we're playing Spin the Bottle!"

"No freaking _way_!" Mello said. "He _cannot_ play with us, Linda!"

"Why not?" the pigtailed girl protested, already scooting over slightly to make room for him.

Mello had his blazing eyes so totally focused on Near that, when the girl beside him tapped his shoulder, he nearly jumped out of his skin. Matt snickered. The girl shoved the bottle into his hand. "It's your turn, Mello."

"What kind of game is this?" Near asked quietly, wide black eyes trained on the glass bottle as he fidgeted with his hair.

"See? He doesn't even know how to play!" Mello argued, gesturing at his rival with the bottle.

Matt gave an exaggerated sigh. "Just spin the damn thing, Mels, you're holding up the game."

"Ugh, _fine_." Mello admirably held back the urge to slam the bottle onto the hard floor as he positioned it in the open center of their circle. He glowered at Matt out of the corner of his eye. "But if this thing _somehow_ lands on you again, you're getting a punch instead of a kiss."

He spun it hard. It skittered around the floor half a dozen times before slowing. The giggling and gasping rose from the small crowd as it finally seemed close to stopping, heading directly for Linda...

...and nudging just past her, to Near.

Or rather, it pointed precisely halfway between Linda and Froggy, where Near still stood curiously twirling his hair, just outside the circle.

Matt doubled over with laughter.

Mello went completely red in the face – from embarrassment or rage, no one could really tell. Either way, he leaned over and punched Matt square in the kidney, which put an immediate stop to the laughing.

"What the hell was that for?" the redhead demanded.

"I knew it! You rigged it to do that!" Mello yelled.

"It's a friggin' glass bottle, Mello!" he yelled back.

" _So?!"_

"So do you _see_ any magnets or radio controls stuck in it?"

"This is a very strange game," Near murmured from across the circle.

"You, you... _hacked it_ , or something!" Mello said, flustered and stumbling over his words now.

"I can't _hack_ the laws of physics, dumbass!"

Finally, Linda rolled her eyes and loudly said, "Are you gonna kiss him or not, Mello?"

Near's eyes widened into saucers, and his fingers froze mid-twirl. Mello stopped dead in his raging and locked eyes with him, just for an instant.

"That... that didn't even count!" Mello suddenly decided. "He's not even part of the circle!"

"Sure he is, I invited him to join us after all," Linda said.

"But he never even sat down!"

"So what?" she shrugged. The other kids around her began to voice their agreement. Mello knew he was losing – because of course he would lose, with Near involved – and jumped to his feet.

"Screw this!" he grumbled, stomping around the outside of the circle. "I'm not playing if _he_ is!"

The room sat awkwardly silent as Mello stormed out. Near still stood next to Linda, shifting from foot to foot and twirling his hair slowly. His eyes lingered on the door until he felt Linda gently tug on his sleeve.

"Don't worry about him, Near," she said sweetly. "We don't mind you playing with us."

"Yeah, and besides," Matt said, patting the floor next to him, "now there's an open spot."

Near cautiously made his way around the circle as Matt sent the bottle spinning. He sat in the warm spot that Mello had left on the otherwise cold floor. Bottle still freewheeling, Matt leaned over to him and whispered, "Who knows, sitting there, you might get _lucky_."

* * *

Mello had finally managed to bury himself in his studies when somebody knocked softly on his bedroom door. For a second, he wasn't even sure it was his door they were knocking on – it could have been two or three doors away, it was so quiet. But then it came again.

He snarled and threw his pencil across the room. How was he ever supposed to be number one around here with people breaking his concentration like this?

" _What?!"_ he barked.

The door opened cautiously, and what should peek around it but that damnable white mop again. Mello turned back toward his desk in a huff. He shuffled the papers there until he found another pencil hiding in the mess.

"Hello, Mello," came the infuriatingly soft greeting.

"What do you _want_ , Near?"

Near closed the door quietly and stood beside it. "I learned how to play."

Mello side-eyed him. "What the hell are you babbling about?"

"Spin the Bottle," Near said, shrugging his narrow shoulders. "The gameplay is exceedingly simple. I'm not sure why you were so concerned that I had no prior knowledge of it. I picked it up rather quickly."

"Good for you," Mello said sarcastically, though he assumed Near wouldn't take it for sarcasm. "So why are you here, to gloat about who you kissed?"

"No."

Mello shuffled his notes, and idly scribbled on a few things. All for show, of course. There was no way he could resume his studies with Near's big eyes staring holes in the back of him. Finally he slammed his hands down on the papers and stood up to face him.

"So _what is it_ , already?" he said, on the verge of shouting. "Did you come in here just to _annoy_ me?"

Near twirled a lock of hair, a corner of his mouth twitching up into a smirk. "No. I merely came to collect what I'm owed."

Mello's face fell into a confused mess, his eyes nearly bugging out of his skull. "Did you step outside and sunburn your brain or something? Since when do _I_ owe _you_ anything?!"

"You know the rules of the game, Mello," he said slowly, his mouth curling now into a full, conspiratorial little smile. "You kiss whomever the mouth of the bottle points to, no exceptions."

Mello's hands balled up into fists.

"But you didn't finish your last turn."

Mello ground his teeth and glared his scariest glare. "Get. _Out_."

"Technically, I suppose it's not a win-or-lose kind of game, but as Matt explained to me, chickening out definitely means you're the loser."

Mello's fists were shaking at his sides, his voice strained from pure rage. "Near, I swear to God, I will knock _every single one_ of your teeth out –"

"I would prefer a gentler kiss than that."

"—if you don't get out of my room _right now_!"

"I am simply giving you the opportunity to redeem yourself," Near sighed, looking more bored than disappointed. "Really Mello, if you can't even beat me in a game of Spin the Bottle, how do you ever expect to beat me for the title of L?"

Mello made a wild, guttural sound and slammed a fist into his desk, sending paper flying and books toppling, his whole body shaking. Near was going to pay, and pay _dearly_ , for this. Mello lunged toward him with burning green murder in his eyes.

"I'll show _you_ who's the loser!" he roared. "I'm gonna kiss the _shit_ out of you, you little bastard!"

Mello slammed Near backwards into the wall, knocking the breath out of him. He didn't give him the chance to get it back. He crashed their lips together in a way that was sure to leave bruises on the smaller boy's fair skin, pinning him against the wall with forearms and hips. Near made a muffled squeak of protest before desperately wrenching his mouth free and gasping loudly for air, his cheeks hot and red.

Mello grabbed roughly at his face and reclaimed his mouth, only it was still open, and Near soon became aware of the presence of an extra tongue in there. It was a weird, wriggly, warm thing, but not exactly unpleasant. And somehow it called to his attention that an entire warm body was pressed against him, which he suddenly found to be _very_ pleasant. Near felt a surge of... _something_ run down his spine, emboldening him. He realized his arms were still relatively free, and he soon had one wrapped around Mello, fingers tangled in soft blond hair, and the other clutching onto Mello's shirt. He kissed his rival back in kind, slipping his tongue into his mouth and trying to mimic what he'd been doing.

Mello wanted to laugh. He had _definitely_ won. He bit Near's tongue, just to spite him, and figured that would be the end of it.

It wasn't.

He expected Near to recoil right away, but instead he made a little mewling noise in Mello's mouth, and clung closer, and squirmed against him in just the right way, and kept on kissing him despite the faint taste of blood between them, and, _and_...

Holy hell, was he actually _enjoying_ this?

The door burst open, and everything stopped moving in slow motion. A gasp and the quick click of a camera separated the two of them in a flash, and suddenly Mello was running out the door red-faced and screaming, _"I'm gonna fucking_ kill _you, Matt!"_ , and Near was left standing alone in Mello's room, with bruised lips and a dribble of blood in his mouth, dazed.

Near had gotten a shy peck of a kiss from Linda during the game, as well as an uncomfortably wet one from Matt, but he had certainly never been kissed 'the shit out of' before. It was far more enjoyable than the name made it sound.

Near was no authority on kissing, but he decided Mello was damn good at it.

* * *

 **A/N:** I fear Near went a little OOC on me, but I figure he had enough time to think quite a bit about that kiss he should've gotten... and _maybe_ Matt overstated the rules of the game...

Or Matt could've just orchestrated the whole thing. Via hacking. B-)

(Remember, if you don't **review** , you definitely lose the game..)


End file.
